Good times with the mega fauna

Posted on September 16, 2021 by Bev Marshall

If there is a more perfect place than Coral Bay, I’d like to know where it is.

Here’s why: pristine white sand; crystal clear water that is bluer than you’ve ever seen; a reef a few metres from the shore, meaning not only great snorkeling to see corals and reef fish, but also calm waters; a very small, blissfully under-developed holiday town (permanent population about 300) that’s nothing more than a couple of caravan parks, a hotel, two cafes and a few tour operators variously offering diving, fishing, snorkelling, off-roading trips.

The world heritage listed Ningaloo reef is the world’s largest fringing reef: it extends 300 kms along the west coast from Carnarvon to Exmouth. It is possible to stop pretty much anywhere along here, grab your snorkel and fins and be swimming over the reef within a few metres. At least 250 different species of coral are here and, in total, represent over 50% of the Indian Ocean’s entire coral life.

Where to start? It has to be with our first trip outside the reef to swim with the humpback whales. Thousands of these whales migrate north from Antartica along the west coast of Australia for mating and calving in warmer waters, and return south for the summer feeding grounds. So there are humpbacks passing by between June and the end of October. Sadly, my lack of planning means we arrive in early September after the whale-sharks have headed off.

However we strike it lucky with the humpbacks. After a couple of half hour snorkels over the beautiful corals on the outer reef, we wait for the spotter plane to call in a sighting. He sees a mother and her calf and we are off to meet them. Rules apply, and the calf must be at least half the size of the mother for us to go in with them, and adult whales can be 20 metres long. Our guides divide us into two swimming groups and we are group two – damn, I think, she may be gone before we get in. The first 7 swimmers get the call to go in and only a couple see her before she dives. In group two, we sit tense and ready on the swimming platform: Swim! the call comes and without hesitation we slide into the water, swimming in the direction our guide indicates. Look down, she shouts. I do, and immediately gasp/screech into my snorkel – the mother and calf swim a couple of metres below me, she bears a fleet of ramora (suckerfish), stark white against her grey-black skin. My thoughts race from Amazing! this can’t be real to, I hope she doesn’t come up under me right now! The following pic is a hazy screen grab from a go-pro video one of the other swimmers took – but you get the idea!

our humpback mum and calf with ramora getting a free ride

We think that’s it, but the plane calls in a pod heading south. We find them quickly and the spotter pilot says he counts 8 or 9. The boat follows them from the prescribed distance of 100 metres, though at times they close the distance towards us and put on a show I’d happily pay to see again. Breaching, rolling and waving pectoral fins, showing off their flukes. Apparently breaching is unusual behaviour as it’s a high-energy demand: a full breach needs the whale to break through the water’s surface at its top speed of 28km/h. We follow them at 4-5 knots for at least an hour and it is riveting. Apologies if you have seen these photos on my Insta @bevzac56 but it was so exciting I can’t help adding them in here.

No known reason for breaching, it takes a lot of energy so it must just be for fun.

We think that day will be hard to beat, but then we go out on another trip to find Manta Rays. Again a couple of snorkels on the outer reef first. These are wonderful as it is a low tide and so parts of the reef are in shallow water and the sunlight illuminates the fish and coral. We swim over massive cabbage flower corals through which hundreds of little iridescent fish swim; watch parrot fish nibble the coral; watch turtles swim to the surface to take a breath of air before sinking back down, lazily paddling their flippers. We stop at the shark cleaning station where grey and white tipped reef sharks come by and have cleaner fish nibble the parasites from their skin. With my advanced fish identification skills I mis-identify a large grey fish as a shark.

low tide at the outer reef – the clarity of the water is superb

Then the party starts – again a spotter plane, this time looking for the ballet dancers of the ocean, huge Manta Rays. These graceful diamond shaped rays are really smart (biggest brain to body ratio of any fish), have no sting or barb posing no threat to humans, and are filter feeders. They can grow to have a seven metre wingspan and weigh a couple of tonnes. this time we are in three groups, again we are number two. the spotter finds a beautiful large manta, about 4-5 metres in wingspan, and we rotate through the groups quickly. Group one swims until the manta has moved beyond them and by then the boat has moved ahead and group two drops in, then the skipper picks up group one, drops group three, picks up two, drops one etc etc. We have four swims and the final two are breathtaking, lasting what seems like ages but which in reality is probably five minutes, if that. Like a big blanket floating through the air, the manta undulates and glides, searching for food. It is mesmerising.

So we get to swim with two out of three of the mega fauna that frequent these waters, and and in the immortal words of Meatloaf, two out of three ain’t bad.

Station to Station WA

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Bev Marshall

I realise I have used this title in a 2019 blog about cattle and sheep stations in the eastern states. The life on WA stations is, if possible, even more harsh. I noted last time the diversification into tourism with station tours and camping sites, and I still feel it is a privilege to gain access and some insight into the life of these huge farming enterprises.

On the road you pick up information about interesting places to visit and where the good campsites are. We also use a great app, Wikicamps, which gives all manner of information: everything from whether there are rubbish bins at a wayside parking stop, through to the availability of electricity and water, shade, scenery, a laundry, swimming, fishing etc. Yes, it even notes if there are crocodiles, though we are now too far south to worry. As with any travel site, the reviews are as revealing about the venue as they are about the reviewer.

We spend almost three weeks staying at three cattle stations, which, with apologies to Tolstoy, are all alike, but different in their own way. They are all cattle stations and at this time of year they’re busy with mustering. Depending on the station this involves various combinations of horses, motorbikes, four wheelers, and helicopters. When you’ve got thousands of hectares, it’s a lot of roaming ground for cattle. I’m providing links for each station so if you are so inclined you can read more about them.

Cheela Plains Station is a family owned and managed working cattle station of 188,501 hectares and has a great set up for camping and caravans. There’s red dirt for miles, but we all back our caravans up to a large grassy oval that makes for a (slightly) cooler spot where kids play and adults sit with g&ts or beers. Once a week there’s $10 burger night and staff cook the burgers on a flat plate over a massive open fire pit. These events are always a good opportunity to meet other travellers and, as mentioned, glean information about places that we may not know about.

At Cheela Plains a patch of grass is a welcome relief from red dirt

We take a day trip that is an archaeological journey: a drive up the Beasley River Gorge, which runs through the property, reveals a continuous succession of rocks that record the rise of oxygen in the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere more than 2700 million years ago. This is awesomely known as The Great Oxidation Event. Until this time, our atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide and methane. Geologists reckon that over a period of 400 million years the earth’s atmosphere became oxygenated, leading to the evolution of complex life forms – like fish, and people who understand crypto currency and non fungible tokens, and the rest of us.

Only open since 2017, Peedamulla Campground is a different stay entirely. Peedamulla means ‘plenty water’ and the Cane River runs through the 226,000 hectares of the cattle station – when it runs. The campground has only 20 sites, and in fact water is scarce, so not so much plenty water at this time. In fact the Cane River is mostly dry right now. Aboriginals own this property but the campground was developed under Tourism WA’s Camping with Custodians program. This is an initiative which allows visitors to stay on Aboriginal lands and engage with Aboriginal people. Tourism WA pays for the development – showers, toilets and general set up – and the quid pro quo is jobs, training, and economic return for the local Aboriginal Community. Typically there would be talks and discussions with locals in the evenings, all on hold because of COVID. There’s a lot of serenity here, so trips provide a change of scene. We 4WD out to the coast, which is stunningly beautiful as the tide comes in. Not so charming, the snake crossing the road on the way there.

teach a man to fish and he’ll never stop

Out third station is Bullara Station Stay, another very popular family owned and run property which has made itself as much of a bush-camp set up as it can, without actually being one.

The showers are all set up as “camp” showers -buckets with holes punched in the bottom instead of shower heads. Initially it’s a bit disconcerting when the water keeps flowing after the taps are off, but it is just the bucket emptying.

They use corrugated iron for the toilet and shower blocks, old horseshoes and bolts and bits of tools for door handles and toilet roll holders. It’s an effective technique for using what’s on hand for a design purpose. The overall effect is a bit of fun. You know it’s not a real outback camp, but hey, let’s pretend we’re roughing it.

A few pet sheep wander around the property along with a couple of kangaroos, one of which comes to visit and sleeps under the caravan. She must’ve come back overnight as we woke to kangaroo pee on the mat outside our door. Maybe she was annoyed we didn’t feed her enough almonds earlier in the day.

Another off road trip took us out to the Gulf (Exmouth Gulf) but no snakes this time. The drive was a bit of a disappointment – not because of the lack of snakes, but the gulf coast at this point isn’t particularly arresting: I despise mangroves even though I know they perform useful tasks in the ecosystem.

Even so, it was worth it for the proliferation of wildfowers on the way there. Still lots of purple Mulla Mulla, but now also a lot of white flowers, including these pipe cleaner like blooms pictured below. We never tire of them.

Simply gorgeous

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Does the word gorgeous come from the fact gorges are so gorgeous? I pose this question to myself constantly as we explore the stunning chasms that carve their way through Karajini National Park. Set in the heart of the Pilbara, just north of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Hamersley Range, Karajini covers 627,422 hectares and is WA’s second largest national park. For the most part it is dusty plains punctuated with rocky hills ( they call them mountains but you and I know 1200 metres is just a hill ) jutting up out of nowhere. Then you arrive at the edge of a cliff that takes you down a precarious path to a lovely natural swimming pool. Our favourite is Fern Pool in Dales Gorge, and we reach it after a long walk around the rim of the gorge, then a descent and a long walk along the gorge floor. A waterfall cascades at the end of the pool which is about five or six metres deep. Someone dives in and loses their sunglasses; Scott has his mask, fins and snorkel with him and after a few dives manages to find them, much to general delight.

Throughout the park there are more than half a dozen accessible gorges and swimming holes – all require some clambering down and climbing out, sometimes over quite unstable surfaces, and all are worth the trouble. I run out of words to describe all of these wonders: they are magnificent, deep chasms, many fed by waterfalls, fringed with greenery and mind blowing rock formations.

the rock walls are a constant fascination

The permanent water supply supports some native trees, such as the Rock Fig and Rock Kurragong which miraculously cling to the rock walls and flourish. Fluffy purple Mulla Mulla, bright yellow cassia and wattle – 65 species no less – spring up and show their full glory against the red earth.

Fortescue Falls, Karajjini, requires a long walk down

The Pilbara is a geological time map – It comprises the oldest and most ancient rock formations in the world. It’s true. Parts of the Pilbara are dated over 3.5 billion years old and the existence of stromatolites – the earliest fossil evidence of life on Earth – are present here and also nearby at Shark Bay out to the coast. The knowledge they were the only life for a couple of billion years before they raised the oxygen level enough to allow the development of other forms of life, us, for example, is astounding.

The night sky viewing is second to none and we sign up for an astronomical adventure with Phil, a man whose jokes have more corn than Illinois, Iowa and Indiana combined. But he has three telescopes and he knows his stuff. TMI (too much information) results as he reels off numbers of light years, degrees of heat, numbers of moons and how many Earths could fit onto other planets, and I tune Phil out and simply enjoy the beauty of a sky with no light pollution, and gasp at the images we see through the telescopes: Alpha Centauri, Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon and other nameless stars that are so much more than what they seem – like all of us.

It has been a revelation – isn’t everything in this country? – to discover the Pilbara region and the diversity of landscapes. We now head west and will stay on some working cattle stations as we head to the coast again.

O for Ore-some

Posted on August 20, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Many people dislike Port Hedland because of the never ending red dust and the overt industrialisation that gives the town its reason for being: it is the biggest bulk export port in the world, exporting predominantly iron ore, manganese, lithium, and salt among other things.

However, we end up spending more time here than we thought we would just because it is all so interesting. We take some tours to find out more about this red dirt town. The Seafarers’ Harbour Tour takes us out into the harbour so we get up close and personal with the massive ships in port. The Twilight Tour takes us around the land based operations that feed the port. The Eco Salt tour takes us out to the massive salt ponds and tells us about the traditional Aboriginal use of the land and how they are working together in the eco projects. A city (I use the term loosely) tour clues us in to the history of Port Hedland including the lengths people must go to to batten down the hatches in cyclone season. The building code in Port Hedland is apparently the most stringent in Australia, requiring extensive roof fastening to prevent beheadings when roofing iron flies off during high winds.

The roof is reinforced with the battens running vertically down the walls, and the roofing iron is also battened

Iron ore is the reason for the existence of Port Hedland. The Pilbara holds the biggest deposit of iron ore in the world and the world is hungry for it, particularly China which takes 60% of the exports. So this blog includes a lot of awesome facts and figures, but I still won’t be able to convey the massive entity that is this production.

More about the Pilbara in a future blog, but we know we’re there as we encounter more and more trucks on the road, quads – four trailers of ore – heading to the Port. Couple that with huge trucks moving the biggest diggers you’ll ever see and it is wise to pull off to the side of the road when you see the flashing lights coming your way.

The ore is loaded on to very, very long trains for transport to the ships. The trains are three kilometres long and comprise 268 ore cars with a locomotive at each end and two in the middle; each ore car carries 140 tonnes of ore. I’ll do the maths for you, that’s 37,500 tonne per train and there’s a train an hour – and this is just BHP. The trains dump the ore, two carriages at a time onto conveyor belts – it takes 30 seconds – which transfer the ore to loaders then into bulk holds on the ship. There are 500 kilometres of conveyor belts around the Port, in case you are wondering. All the conveyors and loaders are autonomous and are run from Perth.

BHP is the biggest player in these parts, followed by FMG and the Johnny come lately to mining in these parts, Roy Hill, owned by the redoubtable Gina Rinehart. Yet Gina made so much money last year she gave all employees a 50% bonus on their salary (this is according to our tour guide). The various companies’ relative holdings are reflected in the number of berths they own for loading (see port map below – PPA are port authority general use). It takes four tugs to bring a bulk carrier in and out of the harbour. BHP own their own tugs, which they had custom built.

At any time there can be 60 ships at anchorage off Port Hedland for two to six days waiting for their turn to enter. Air Traffic control has nothing on the harbour dance. Ships must be a minimum of 14 days at sea (COVID restrictions) no matter where they come from, and when they dock seamen are not allowed ashore. The pilot is flown out by helicopter to bring the massive ships (360 metres long and 60 metres wide) into a channel only 190 metres wide. As the tidal flow can be up to 7.4 metres, there’s two sailing windows over a 24 hour period allowing 5 or 6 ships to come in to load; the turnaround time to fully load is 24-36 hours. When a fully loaded ship departs there is 24 centimetres, yes 9.4 inches, clearance to the harbour floor. And that is what a plimsoll line is for – to show the maximum depth for a fully loaded ship

The ship on the left is leaving, on the right it waits to load. The plimsoll line shows the difference between a fully loaded and empty bulk carrier.

What’s the bottom line? When iron ore was $100 per tonne, BHP was shipping $95 billion worth of ore a year. The latest price is somewhere around $220 per tonne, so you can double that. We understand it is $15 a tonne to extract, so I’ll leave it to you to do the maths and weep – or buy shares.

Rio Tinto is the world’s largest exporter of seaborne salt – meaning salt that is produced from evaporating seawater, as opposed to the Siberian version of mining salt – 5 million tonnes of salt every year, with most of it going to Asia and the Middle East for industrial use: in glass, industrial chemicals, and soaps and detergent. We drive out of town to inspect the evaporation flats. The whole farm is 21,000 hectares, so that’s a lot of fish and chips and tequila shots. They say the operations are a biodiversity area with greater than 1% of the world population of Red-necked Stint, Curlew Sandpiper, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and Red-capped Plover, of which we see none. Port Hedland is also the most important known Australian site for Broad-billed Sandpiper and the endangered Asian Dowitcher – of which we see none. Back in town we watch $4.5 million bulldozers crawl over massive salt mountains. The dozers have another $1million of salt specification protection applied before use, and this is repeated every 9000 hours.

So we are fans of Port Hedland – it isn’t pretty but it is interesting.

here’s a map to show the relative ship loading facilities

So what’s happening?

Posted on August 7, 2021 by Bev Marshall

A few of you, my gentle readers, ask what’s happening for us with the latest Australian COVID cock-up. More on that in a moment. For now we are enjoying this, the beach shown below. At the far end you can see some trees which mark the caravan park where we’re staying. At the moment we’re on our eighth day at this aptly named and very beautiful 80 mile beach. The nearest town is Port Hedland, 250kms away and only a roadhouse in between. There’s nothing to do but walk the beach, read, potter, fish (Scott – and no, nothing worth keeping) and take naps. The down side? It isn’t at all nice for swimming as there’s not much clarity, lots of stingers, maybe sharks – though it’s possible there’s as much chance of a shark attack as there is catching COVID here but I’d as soon risk neither. And the caravan park shop doesn’t have an espresso machine.

Here’s a particularly big stinger – they get stuck on the beach as the tide goes out

First, breaking news: we haven’t been hospitalised with blood clots: 29 days ago we had our first Astra Zeneca (AZ) jabs. The reason I even mention blood clots is the potential risk of blood clots forming (between 4 and 28 days) after vaccination has been blown out of proportion, and is part of the reason the vaccine roll out in Australia is a complete dog’s breakfast. Never mind the proverbial piss up in a brewery, they literally can’t organise a vaccine programme in a pandemic.

So here’s the current state of play. As New Zealand ordered only Pfizer vaccine, the Astra Zeneca “problem” probably has not arisen at home. Despite the fact that AZ is 100% effective and is widely used around the world, and is what most countries have built their vaccination programmes around, that is ignored.

Here in Australia there is much panic-inducing reportage, along with mixed messages from the Federal and individual State Governments (thank God New Zealand has one Government for the whole country) and various health experts, about AZ. At first the recommendation is it’s for over 40s, then they amend the advice to over 50s, then over 60s. At the same time the Government announces the phasing out of AZ while they order more Pfizer.

Even so, they are contracted to manufacture 52 million doses of AZ at God knows what cost, and they’ll “donate” unused vaccines to “poorer countries”. The upshot? People in all age groups including all the COVID at risk groups think, well, I’ll wait for the Pfizer cos the Government doesn’t think AZ is any good. Then, in what is hardly unprecedented, ScMo does another about face – he must be dizzy by now – and goes on TV telling anyone over 18 to go and get AZ as soon as possible!

Then there’s the anti-vaxxers, COVID deniers, and lockdown protestors, who all like to get together, mask-less, and “exercise their freedom”. Ironically, if they got jabbed they’d have more freedom. Still they hold fast to crystals and sunshine to protect them from the virus. At a protest in Sydney last week one protestor was so incensed at the idea of stopping community transmission he punched a horse. Who punches a horse? The horse showed greater maturity by not punching back.

How does the popping of the trans-Tasman bubble impact us? The eight weeks Jacinda set takes us to September 17th. We’d planned to come back to NZ at the end of October, so decided to hold fast to hope and stay on. Surely NSW and Queensland can get their shit together before then. Oh how we laugh. Our second vaccination (AZ, so not available in NZ) is due on August 20th, so arguably we have to stay here for that.

Western Australia has, perhaps, the most strict border arrangements and the Premier, Mark McGowan, is ready and more than willing to shut things down at a moment’s notice. He is well supported by the public. Everywhere we go scanning in is routine and staff will remind you to do so if they think you’ve forgotten. It doesn’t escape us that the economy of WA is massive and relies on mines, pipelines, drilling and off shore work continuing. The export of iron ore must not be stopped – more on that in the next blog when I introduce you to the delights of Port Hedland, the largest bulk export port IN THE WORLD.

We are prepared to linger longer in WA if we can’t get home when we plan – might be when we find out if we can live in Albany as we wondered a few weeks ago. If the NZ/Australia border opens and we have to go into quarantine, so be it – we knew that could happen when we left. The issue might be getting a booking if what I read on Stuff is true.

It is tiresome hearing about Aussie athletes at Tokyo, because of course New Zealand’s fantastic efforts and achievements are of little interest here. I also never thought I’d be able to name each State’s Premier and Chief Medical Advisor, but there you go.

Suggest you hold off buying us Christmas presents, as we may not make it home by then.

A ghost town, a big rock and a hole in the ground

Posted on July 22, 2021 by Bev Marshall

We are in Cue, an old gold mining town 659 kms north east of Perth, and once again find there are interesting things in the middle of nowhere. Today the population is a couple of hundred, but in its hey day, the 1890s, 10,000 people made the town their home. Now the shops are deserted and you could fire the proverbial cannon down the street and not hit anyone. Some most impressive buildings stand empty and indicate the proclivities of the old town: the Gentleman’s Club, the Old Gaol, Government buildings, and the Masonic Lodge. Sadly they are closed up and so we do not see what must be beautiful pressed tin interiors. Yet there’s enough in the surrounding area to keep us here for a couple of days.

The plaque on the rotunda records that: “This rare octagonal bandstand was built in 1904 and dedicated to the pioneers of the Murchison region. It was a popular meeting place in the early years of settlement and the town’s band played here on Saturday nights. The drinking fountain was added in 1934.” It was originally built to cover the town’s first well which was believed to have been responsible for an outbreak of typhoid.

The Masonic Lodge – no more secret handshakes here

We start by driving 40kms west to the genuine ghost town of Big Bell, which between 1937 and 1951 produced 726,298 oz of gold. It was a thriving community with a school and hospital. There is still a mine out that way, but Big Bell is a ruin with scraps of corrugated iron and broken concrete the only testament to a former life. There is one standing ruin, the old hotel, which must’ve been most impressive in its day. The remains show triple brick walls, a cellar, and a multitude of rooms. Now it stands sad and abandoned by all but the ghosts. We know this as we meet an old timer later who tells tales of going out there when it was still open he said it had a “bad feel” and you didn’t want to be there for too long. Proof positive of a haunting I’d say.

The ruins of the Big Bell hotel – haunted

We carry on to Walga Rock which, after Uluru, is the biggest monolith in Australia: 5 kilometres in diameter, 1.5 kilometres long and 500 metres high. Unlike Uluru, there are only a dozen people there and most of them are road crew on a lunch break. It also has a couple of hundred metres of Aboriginal art under the overhang on the western wall.

even better, Walga Rock is devoid of tourists

Mysteriously, we are over 300 km from the sea and there is a painting of a white, square-rigged sailing ship with two masts and square portholes. While the origin of the painting is unknown, and there is no accurate dating of the ship, it is believed to have been done before 1900; one theory is that it was done by a Dutch sailor shipwrecked on the coast who was looked after by Aborigines, another theory is that it was done by an Afghan camel guide. Several rows of text under the ship look faintly Arabic, so the latter seems a possibility.

the sailing ship is at odds in the Aboriginal rock paintings

The next excursion, at the behest of Scott, is to the Dalgaranga Crater, a meteorite strike site found in 1921 by an Aboriginal stockman. This is a potentially exciting and interesting trip. Guess what. It’s not. Unless you count seeing the smallest meteorite crater in Australia – 24 metres in diameter and three metres deep – exciting and interesting. Surprisingly, not even the fact this crater is unique as the only one known to have been produced by a mesosiderite projectile, or asymmetries in the crater structure and the ejecta blanket imply that the projectile impacted at low angle from the south-southeast can rouse my interest.

And a final word of advice. When peeing in the outback, always look for ants before dropping your pants.

Who’ll stop the rain?

Posted on July 15, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Do not think Australia is all sun all the time. It rains. And it’s windy. Sometimes it rains a lot, and it blows a lot, as we find over the past weeks. The day before we leave Albany, just over three weeks ago, it rains so hard we stay in the caravan all day. A few days later, at Walpole the same. Thank God for Netflix. The wind brought down a branch so close to the neighbour’s head they packed up and left. Just as we finish dinner at the pub on our last night the power goes out all over the region – tree down. So we avoid the very south of the coast, deciding Windy Bay is probably not the best choice, and travel on to Margaret River. Within a day or so it’s thunder, lightening, just a little bit frightening. A veritable river forms along the grass area behind the caravan and the poor tent dwellers pack up and leave. On up the coast to Busselton, more of the same: at least one day quaking under the sound of hail on our tin roof. Now Bunbury, and yesterday the Bureau of Meteorology heralds the coldest and strongest front for Perth this season, warns of flash flooding, damaging winds and power outages, hot on the heels of the same three or four days ago. What can we say? It’s Winter, and at least the temperature is still in the high teens. And the caravan doesn’t leak.

Our trip through the South West of WA – caravans show where we base ourselves, and flags are day trips away

Yet we are still having a great time, and there are enough days with few showers or gorgeous all day sun to do all the things we want to do.

The coast from Albany along to Walpole is a lovely beach/surf coast – the biggest wave surfed in Australia was off this part of the coast. If you read Tim Winton, and/or have seen the movie of Breath, the filming takes place along here. If you like watching big wave surfing, go here. But aside from the history and beauty of the coast, the Australian bush just north is more fascinating. This part of WA is home to the Tingle trees – love the name – which only grow here and are quite remarkable. Not only can they grow to 25 metres (75+ feet) tall, they have wide buttressed bases with a large hollow inside. This is created over a long period of time by fire, fungal and insect attack, yet they keep living and growing for up to 400 years. Now that’s resilience.

Scott attempts to reach across the Giant Red Tingle

Many of us who drink wine know Margaret River as the main grape growing area of WA, yet its 2021 harvest tonnage is barely 24,000 tonnes, and overall makes up only about 2% of Australia’s total grape crush. I’m not sure what is smaller than boutique, but many of the 175 wine producers crush less than 50 tonnes (about 4,000 cases). Given the comparative size of the vineyards and crops, we marvel at the extravagance of some of the wineries and revel in the quality of their restaurants. It is our duty to consume a few degustation lunches with matching wines so we can judge fairly. Besides, when it’s raining, what better place than a cosy winery restaurant?

As you can see on the map above, Margaret River is about halfway along a jutting out bit of the west coast. At the south end is Cape Leeuwin where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet, and the northern end is Cape Naturaliste. In between is a stunning surf coast (the Margaret River Pro is part of the World Tour) and a landform with around 150 caves, with several open to the public. We take a tour of Jewel Cave, the largest tourist cave in WA. It boasts one of the longest stalactites in the world and there’s a lot of sparkle through the three massive chambers which extend to a depth of 253 metres.

This formation is the Karri Forest – for obvious reasons.

And we go from the sublime to the ridiculous. We visit a tourist town of over ten thousand, yet there’s no businesses, no shops, no schools. You know how, back in the day, someone stole their neighbours garden gnome, took it around the world and sent photos of it back to its owners? Well Gnomesville seems to be the place every garden gnome washed up. It started when the council, against public opinion – that’s unusual – put in a roundabout. Overnight a gnome moves in. By the weekend there’s two AFL teams, wearing team guernseys, of gnomes set up in a game. This becomes a traffic hazard as everyone slows down to look. The council makes a sensible decision – that’s unusual – and moves them to the verge. So many years on they and their multinational mates sit with no gnome to go to, or from broken gnomes and every cheesy pun you can think of – so I’ll say gnome more.

Maybe we could live here

Posted on July 6, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Albany is an attractive town of 35,000 on the south coast of Western Australia (WA). European history dates back to the early 1800s: establishment of the settlement in 1826 predates Perth, though we know indigenous Menang people were in the area for thousands of years prior. As part of the long running English/French antipathy, the English settle Albany as a military outpost to keep the French out. In subsequent years, the fact it is a deep water port has added to its history.

panorama of Princess Royal Harbour from Mount Clarence

Scott is excited to find the (Princess Royal) harbour is one of the best natural harbours in the world, in that it’s deep enough to take any ship, and is protected from big seas and high winds. It is part of the larger King George Sound (all so colonial) and full of beautiful beaches, bays and, yes, historical killing grounds: the last working whale processing factory only closed here in 1978.

The whale station is now a museum but looks as though it could start up again any minute – most of the equipment is still there, as is a lingering odour, a bit like an abattoir. One of the last whale chaser boat rests on shore and you can stand at the bow and yell “Thar she blows!” if you feel so inclined. There’s also the killing and flensing floors, and massive rendering silos to examine, along with lots of photos which, once seen can not be erased from your brain. It’s interesting. but very grim. A couple of days later on a boat trip, the skipper tells us he remembers going on school camps, when he was seven or eight, to the whaling station when it was still operational. What a fun day out for the kids, watching flesh stripped and blubber boiled down for oil.

The river trip takes us across Oyster Bay – more oyster tasting – and up the Kalgan River. Originally a French explorer, Baudin, charted and named the Rivière des Français in 1803, but of course Aboriginal people were there long before: there are fish traps dating back 7.500 years. Kalganup translates as place of many fishes. It is a beautiful trip on a calm. blue day, and we watch pelicans and osprey diving for fish.

The Kalgan bridge – we had to lower the roof of the boat to get underneath

Albany sits not just on the ocean but between what the Australians like to call mountains; Mount Clarence (177 metres) and Mount Melville (152 metres). Despite their Tom Cruise-like aspirations to height, they are both worth our time to visit. We yomp up the steps at the summit of Mt Clarence not only for the view, but to the dramatic Desert Mounted Corps Memorial.

Albany has a proud ANZAC history, as the harbour is where the Australian and New Zealand troopships gathered before sailing off to the First World War. Mt Clarence would have been their last sight as they sailed away, many never to return. This is also the site of the National ANZAC Centre and Albany Forts. The forts now operate as a museum and you can explore the barracks, armouries, underground magazines and gun emplacements. Sorry Mt Melville, but you’ve only got beautiful views.

“Now, I have the means to deploy my evil plan to rule the world”

It’s hard to know where to begin when talking about the landscape, national parks and coastline around the Albany region. We take trips out to Torndirrup National Park which stretches out from the south western part of town and curls around the harbour. It is home to some of the most stunning rock formations you’ll ever see. Granite formations such as the Gap, the Bridge and the Blowholes are self explanatory, but don’t prepare you for the power of the ocean smashing into them and carving them out.

the Bridge, which ultimately will all fall down.

We commit to a tramp/walk/hike out to Bald Head at the far end of Torndirrup which takes us along cliffs and wave smashed beaches, up and down gullies, great granite slabs and bushy promontories. The views are stupendous: we traverse a narrow isthmus where the Southern Ocean roils on the right and the harbour exudes calm on the left. You know you’re alive.

As we travel around Australia we look at places with a could we live here kind of eye. Not that we are thinking remotely about moving, but when you look at a town like Albany and evaluate the plusses, they start to stack up. And I didn’t even mention the fishing.

Wheatbelts and salt lakes

Posted on June 30, 2021 by Bev Marshall

As much as we enjoy Kalgoorlie it becomes time to move on. We head south towards the coast, travelling down the eastern side of the Wheatbelt. The West Australia Wheatbelt stretches east from Perth on the coast and covers 154,862 square kilometres in the south-west of the state. In this area there are 200 towns, but the overall regional population is just 75,000. WA comprises 33% of Australia’s landmass (2,529,875 km²). The population is just three million, with two million of this living in Perth, so it is easy to see why the Wheatbelt is so sparsely populated.

In South Australia we had become used to seeing great swathes of barren grain paddocks, with massive machinery tilling – or some other technical term – and either preparing for, or doing planting. I think Scott feels a pang when he looks at the tractors, though he wouldn’t admit to missing his Iseki.

field preparation somewhere on the Yorke peninsula

Only six weeks or so later we see the first green shoots appearing in the WA grain fields, but it is still difficult to visualise what they will look like in another few months.

At this point we are travelling on our first extended red dust road, taking the less travelled route south. Forewarned by other travellers about the mess that results from red dust blowing into the caravan through air vents, Scott sacrifices a yoga mat – not my good one – to cut templates and covers the vents. We are rewarded with a dust free interior even if the outside looks like it has taken a bath in paprika.

We are heading to Hyden, aka the middle of nowhere, to check out Wave Rock. Yes, yet another stunning land formation. I tell you this country is full of them. Over millions of years wind and rain have undercut the base of the massive Hyden Rock to create a 15 metre high, 110 metre long curving granite shelf that resembles a gigantic striped surf wave ready to break. It is, quite simply, beautiful. Walking up and across the top gives a sense of how extensive the rock is, and in nooks and crannies there are lovely little pockets of flora.

It is up here we can better see the delicate stone fence built by early settlers to channel the rain into the Hyden dam, built in 1928 for the town’s water supply. Early settlers were drawn here for the sandalwood trees, which they harvested and exported to Asia. In the mid to late 1800s up to 14,000 tonnes was being exported each year. Do I need to say there aren’t many left here? Demand is still great, however, and there is a thriving sandalwood industry, with about 20,000 hectares in plantations.

The top of the wave gives a great view over the surrounding area which features several low lying salt lakes, the remnants of ancient river systems. When the land was cleared of native vegetation to plant crops such as wheat, oats and barley, the shallow rooted crops didn’t soak up rainfall in the same way, so rain water trickled down into the deeper salt deposits. As the water table rose, so did the salt and subsequent evaporation created the salt lakes. There are hundreds peppering inland WA and if you go looking – just google salt lakes Western Australia images – you’ll find gorgeous aerial photos

the stripes are caused by minerals washing down in the rain.

salt lakes viewed from the top of Wave Rock.

We arrive at the coast once again, at Albany, and after a week there declare it is a place we could easily live. But more of that next time. For those who asked for more orientation, here’s a map of this blog’s journey.

Are we there yet?

Posted on June 25, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Today we elect to do the walk/bike track upstream along the Margaret River to the 10 mile dam. This is billed as an easy forest track to a catchment that’s part of the town’s water supply. The river is a lot smaller than I expected, but as there has been rain in the past week it has more water than we might expect.

We park at the beginning of the track, on the north side of the river. It takes a bit of finding the start, and I’m ready to give up in the first five minutes – then we realise we are on the wrong path. Once we correct that error, it’s a beautiful ride with towering gums, lots of info boards adding to our knowledge of native flora, and gorgeous views of the river.

So that’s the first half. It gets trickier and as a few trees have come down with the storm a couple of weeks ago we face several points of “so high, can’t get over it, so low, can’t get under it”, though actually we can get over it by lifting the bikes. As you can imagine, this is the kind of riding one of us really enjoys.

We ignore the sign which says “winter alternative route” and find ourselves looking at a ford across the river and a sign stating “unsafe to cross”. What do you think? Yes, we cross. Scott does a barefoot reccy then rides both bikes across while I show my mettle by carrying both pairs of shoes. That water is cold.

By the time we reach the damn dam my legs seem to have forgotten how to propel the wheels. Bear in mind my bike better suits cycling around town – perhaps with a basket of French bread on the front and bellbirds circling about, singing and showing the way. You know, like a Disney movie.

After an exploration of the dam track we decide to take the country roads back to the car. When I consult the map I find we are, in fact, as close to the caravan park as we are to where the car is waiting. I elect to take the easy option (surprise!) and follow the road, while Scott carries on, reconnects with the bike trail and goes back to the car. We arrive home at roughly the same time. But what he doesn’t know is I first go to the Vinnies (charity op-shop) next door to the caravan park and donate my bike.

Scott and Bev are not caravanning

continuing our travels, but not by caravanning

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